


All That We Love Deeply

by Dracavia



Series: The Green Blanket [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:21:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2472998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracavia/pseuds/Dracavia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark never thought he'd outlive Pepper Potts, and certainly not so soon. Why his subconscious would conjure up the image of a dead God of Mischief to help him through the long night before her funeral was anyone's guess, he'd given up on understanding his own brand of crazy. As comfort went though, his mind had actually come up with worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That We Love Deeply

**Author's Note:**

> **Betas:** [Corcalamus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Corcalamus/pseuds/Corcalamus) & [Kyla Hislop](http://kylahislop.tumblr.com/), without whom this story wouldn't be nearly as good as I'm hoping it is.  
>  **Author's note:** This isn't the story I originally set out to write, but the muses got away from me on that one and it turned into something that would be well beyond 15k to finish properly, let alone 5k, and would never have been done in time for this fest. When I set that aside, I figured I'd do a short, comedic piece... this is what showed up instead.  
>  Also, a big **thank you** to [elegantfeatherduster](http://elegantfeatherduster.tumblr.com/) and this year's other [Frostiron Bang](http://frostironbang.tumblr.com/) mods (I couldn't find a post with all your names to give you a shout out, sorry if I missed it!). I had a great time participating in this year's fest and hope I'll get a chance to participate in future fests.
> 
>  **Art:** The fabulous art for this fic was done by **[AncientWinters](http://ancientwinters.tumblr.com/)** and can be viewed [on her Tumblr here](http://ancientwinters.tumblr.com/post/100331714768/so-it-seems-im-the-first-one-to-go-this-is). (Updated with a link direct to the art! Also added a link in the text of the story if you want to view it at the appropriate scene.)

_"What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. "-Helen Keller_

_LOKI: Say goodbye._  
_THOR: Not this day._  
_LOKI: This day, the next, a hundred years, it’s nothing. It’s a heartbeat. You’ll never be ready. The only woman whose love you prized will be snatched from you._  
_\- From[the transcript of Thor 2 by Sorrow (godofmischief.org)](http://godofmischief.org/thor-dark-world-transcript/)_

~*~*~*~*~*~

The sun was setting over the city, lighting the room in shades of orange, red and gold. It would have been rather beautiful, even through his hazy gaze, if it hadn't reminded him so strongly of her. He reached for the bottle, another sip, relishing the burn as it travelled down his throat. It was the third sunset without her, spent the same as the last two, sprawled on the couch, balancing on the fine line between attempts to numb the pain and poisoning himself. She'd be horrified to see him like this – he hadn't gone off the rails so badly since the palladium poisoning – but that was the problem, wasn't it? She wasn't here, and she never would be again. And it was all his fault.

He'd been so sure he'd fixed it, fixed _her_. They'd finally found that healthy balance she'd always hoped for, and he'd never thought he'd be capable of, but he had been... Just over half a year had passed in what Bruce liked to teasingly call their newly-wed bliss, even if there had never been a wedding. It wasn't far off the truth in the metaphorical sense though. It had seemed at first like the fires of the Mandarin had burned away the past, given them the new beginning they'd never expected to have. Then the headaches started...

She worked too much, they both did, so of course they both thought it was just stress at first. And then when they admitted maybe it was something more... Inoperable, too deep, likely the site targeted by Extremis... How had he missed that when he'd taken care of the rest?

She really would hate to see him like this, she told him not to blame himself. "If it wasn't for you, I'd have blown up before now. I was on borrowed time anyway," she'd told him with a tremulous smile. If it hadn't been for him, she'd never have been a target in the first place, he never said, and she was too good to ever throw such a thing back in his face.

It was the third sunset since she'd faded away, hand in his. Tomorrow he'd pull himself together for the public, because the odds of the paps respecting his right to privacy for the service tomorrow were less than zero. They'd probably attribute any lingering symptoms of hang-over to grief, kinder than deserved, but not altogether wrong he supposed.

He didn't even know where the service was going to be, been too grateful when Natasha and Jarvis said they'd take care of everything. He should probably find out, but Happy would know where to go. He just needed to put on a black suit, get in the car, and ride. Bruce would make sure he was presentable before he walked out the door. Rhodey would probably be waiting in the car, ready to spend the trip to the service in awkward silence at his side, making sure he made it to the venue. His oldest friend knew the guilt would only get worse if he let himself chicken out on facing it, but there was no way he'd make it there alone.

Cap would no doubt be waiting at the doors to whatever beautiful chapel Natasha had booked – Riverside maybe, she'd always loved the vaulted ceilings and the view in that one – looking earnest and grave as the occasion demanded. Clint beside him, awkwardly tugging at the collar and tie he was never comfortable in, but had donned for the sake of the occasion. Thor would be there as well, but likely somewhere out of the way, where he wouldn't draw too much attention. The paps fawned over their resident alien even more than the redeemed playboy, but Thor knew grief well enough himself not to want to let his presence overshadow the real reason for the occasion. Each one of them would be there because, somehow, they'd become this strange, dysfunctional family that still worked.

Another sip, somehow the burn hadn't faded even after three days, and he was grateful for that. Grateful to feel something other than numb. She'd hate to see him like this, but he respected her too much to go out somewhere public to feel again, so his options were limited. He was locked out of the lab – his own orders. Whiskey and power tools were too volatile a mix even by his own standards. The others were respecting his request to be left alone until the service and there was nothing left to distract him but the sunset. He closed his eyes tightly and took a longer swig, polishing off the bottle. He'd go get another in an hour or two maybe; the others would never forgive him if they had to bury him alongside her.

"Look at what a mess you are. Flat-out drunk on a week night, really Tony? I thought we were long past this."

His eyes snapped open and there she stood, a wry smile on her lips, caught between amusement and disapproval. The light from the sunset backlit her, making her glow like the angel he'd told her she was. For a moment Tony Stark wished he was a religious man, that he believed in an afterlife and that Pepper Potts might really be standing there in front of him, a vision to console his grief, or to lead him on to her. Unfortunately the only thing he believed in with that sort of religious fervour were the STEM fields, so either he was dreaming or this was a hallucination.

"I wish this was the only way I remembered you..." Tony mused and Pepper's smile fell a bit. "I think Nat said she knew a wig maker that would do you justice, so everyone at the service tomorrow would still see you as you'd always been." He picked up the bottle from the floor beside him and squinted at it, just making out the 'Jim Beam' on the label before he set it back down with a bitter smile. "Need to remember bourbon conjures prettier dreams than scotch when I go for the next bottle."

There was a frown marring her face as her heels clicked on the floor, crossing the distance between them. "What sort of drunken foolishness is this?" Pepper muttered, and the voice was right, but she'd never have said it quite like that.

"You're slipping subconscious. If you're going to do this to me, at least you could keep her in character." Tony held a hand out to her and she took it, allowing herself to be pulled down to sit on the edge of the couch beside his waist.

"What madness has caught you now?" Pepper murmured and reached a hand out to caress the side of his face. A gasp caught her breath and horror marred her beautiful features. "Oh no, it wasn't meant to be like this... This is too cruel, even for me. I should go."

She began to pull away, but he held onto her hand even tighter. "No, Pep, please... Tomorrow I'm going to have to pick myself up and start facing a world without you in it, but right now... Just... let me look at you one more time?"

Pepper stilled like a deer caught in the headlights, just looking down at Tony with increasing sadness as he traced the curve of her cheek and jaw with his rough fingertips.

"Come'er," he murmured and gently pulled her forward, leaning up until their lips met. The kiss was one-sided at first, as though she wasn't quite sure of herself, but slowly Pepper opened her mouth to his and she kissed back. The moment she did, it descended into something else. No-longer gentle and wistful, it became desperate and demanding. When he nipped at her lip a bit too hard and she gasped, he pulled back, looking stricken.

"No, this is wrong, this isn't how I want to remember our last time together... You... You're not her, you're a figment of my grief-stricken imagination. Even if you were a better facsimile, that's still all you'd be, and I'd know it every second. So if you can't help me remember, help me forget. Be someone else, _anyone_ else!" he demanded.

That stricken expression was back for a moment, but then Pepper shimmered gold and strawberry blonde was replaced with dark curls, freckles with milk-white skin, and cherry red lips. Sadness was replaced by a smirk and an anonymous vixen reached out one long-nailed finger to scratch lightly along the line of his stubbly jaw. "Better?" she purred.

"Better," he agreed and pulled her back to him once more. This time he didn't hold back when they kissed, and he relished the feel of her nails digging into the nape of his neck as she demanded as much from him as he from her. She straddled him and pressed their bodies even closer together, but when he closed his eyes to give himself over to the feel, it wasn't different enough and all he could see, could feel, was _Her_.

"No," he breathed and again pushed his dream-visitor away, "no, not different enough. I can still feel her."

The woman before him quirked her head thoughtfully and then the gold shimmer was back and she was replaced by a man even more classically handsome than Cap, shirtless to show off his sculpted musculature. "Different enough?"

His breath caught in his throat. It'd been a very long time since he'd slept with another man. Since before Afghanistan, since before Pepper became a regular fixture in his life in any shape or form. Yes, that would be perfect, but... "Too many muscles, I like... leaner."

Gold again and this time it was a wiry man with chocolate brown skin looking down at him curiously.

"Oh fuck no. I thought I'd forgotten about that time in college, with Rhodey and the tequila. Clearly not."

His partner laughed and with another flash of gold was replaced instead by pale skin and dark hair once more, though with far fewer curves than the first time. Recognition sparked in his mind, but the face wasn't _quite_ right. He reached up and traced a sharp cheekbone beneath a grey-blue eye. "I was looking for a bad idea," he murmured, "a bit more and it just might be bad enough..."

Blue eyes widened, then narrowed as a smirk tugged up the corners of his lips. There was no shimmer this time as blue darkened to green. Black curls lengthened to loose waves, and the line of nose and jaw sharpened just a bit more to match the cheekbones.

"Bad enough for you?" Loki asked playfully.

"Perfect," Tony agreed, and fisting his hand in the long hair he pulled the trickster god down to him.

Loki pushed him the rest of the way down into the cushions, demanding, claiming. His hand slipped beneath the grubby t-shirt Tony had worn for three straight days, and nails scratched down his side, sending a delicious shiver up his spine. "Yes," Tony gasped, "that's it..."

The next few moments were a blur as they kissed and bit, parting only just long enough now and then to pull off a shirt, toss jeans and trousers to the floor. When they were both naked, [Loki sat back, straddling Tony's legs, and ran a hand down his chest.](http://ancientwinters.tumblr.com/post/100331714768/so-it-seems-im-the-first-one-to-go-this-is) His fingers lingered, circling the scar where the arc reactor had once sat. "You removed the device that protected you from the sceptre's power."

"For her... and for me," he added as an afterthought, musing on his words for a moment. "Proof to us both I didn't need a chuck of metal in my chest to have a heart."

"Where's your talisman now?" Loki asked, looking up at him curiously.

"I have plenty of other reactors around, powering my equipment, this tower... I didn't need that one, I got rid of it. It was supposed to be the sign of my catharsis, purging it from my life like I'd purged my doubts and fears. Throwing it away with the past to begin again."

"You know not where such a powerful device resides?"

"I imagine it's still in the ocean, off the coast of Malibu where I left it. Rotting in the salt water, like a metaphor for the fresh start its disposal was supposed to herald," Tony muttered bitterly. He frowned and looked up at Loki again. "What kind of dream are you? You were supposed to help me forget her, remember?"

Loki looked at him with a sad sort of smile. "You don't want to forget her," he told Tony knowingly, "but you _are_ looking for a distraction. A chance to feel something other than the numbing pain of your grief and self-destructive guilt, before you have to pack it all away and go on with your life, pretending like you haven't hand your heart pulled out through your stomach and put on the worst sort of display for all to see."

"You say that like someone who knows what they're talking about..."

"I may look young to you, may even be amongst the people within whom I was raised," Loki told him with a wry smile, "but I've already lived more than 20 times your years, Tony Stark. Grief and loss are hardly a stranger to me."

"That's true I suppose..." Tony ran a hand up Loki's chest to settle over about where he figured his heart would be. "Thor told us all you died to avenge your mother... step-mom? He also said you were denying your 'familial connections' right to the end, despite the mission you were on."

"She was my mother, more than blood could have ever made anyone else... even if my final words to her were ones denying such. Perhaps someday, if Mistress Death chooses to show me greater mercy than I deserve, I will see her and might apologise for my foolishness. She went to her death remembering me as her son, even if I had spurned the honour, so the connection remains..."

"Why do I get the feeling there's more to that story than just what you're saying about your mom?"

"I imagine because you are a surprisingly perceptive person, for a mortal," Loki finished dryly.

"I don't know whether to be insulted or flattered."

"Why don't you stop talking about either and get back to the matter at hand?" Loki took Tony's cock, which had fallen back to half-hardness at the seriousness of their conversation, in hand, stroking it slowly. Tony let his head fall back with a soft moan, revelling in the unfamiliar, but confident touch. "Now," Loki leaned down, lips brushing against Tony's ear as he murmured, "just how different are you looking for, hmm? Shall I ride you while you look and touch upon the decidedly unfeminine planes of my chest, or do you want something more? I could string you out, leave you wanting and pleading, open you wide, until you're begging for me to take and claim you as my own? Until you can't remember anything, not yesterday, nor tomorrow, no responsibilities, not even your own name. The only thing left is now, touch, heat, and my name falling from your lips like a supplication."

Tony writhed and moaned at the combination of Loki's touch and words, but he lifted his head enough to look at Loki through half-lidded eyes and hiss, "Yes."

"You must be certain that this is what you want before we begin," Loki warned. "You said you wanted a bad idea, but once we've begun... I do not take kindly to rejection."

Giving him a grin that had a bit of an edge to it, Tony retorted, "Bad ideas are the story of my life, why change now?"

Loki's hand caressed down Tony's throat, down his neck and shoulder, fingers digging in almost painfully as they paused, "You think you can handle me?"

"I do." There was that grin again.

"Prove it."

"Just give me the chance-" Tony was cut off as Loki gripped the back of his neck, pulling him into a punishing kiss. Tony gripped his shoulders and kissed back just as hard, just as rough, making Loki work to dominate the kiss.

With a sharp nip to his lip, Loki broke the kiss and began working his way downward. He licked, kissed and bit the skin beneath his lips, biting hard on Tony's nipple as they each fought for dominance. Tony gasped at the sensation. They both knew whom would win the fight in the end, but that wasn't going to stop him from pushing Loki to take things further, harder, _more_.

Tony bucked his hips up, _hard_ , forcing Loki to pin them down to get leverage. Some distant part of his mind reflected that this was one thing he'd never found with a female partner, never been able or willing to unleash with Pepper. There was a freedom to be found in just letting go, letting things be as hard, as forceful, as he wanted in that moment. He knew whatever he dished out, Loki could take. No doubt there'd be scratches, bruises, _teeth marks_ , when they were done, but right now that was what he wanted, what he _needed_. It was the kind of release that only came from a hard fight or a hard fuck, and often the latter was a bit of both.

Besides, this was all his own dream, no real repercussions in the morning, right? The inner-workings of his subconscious, wanting both to be punished and conversely wanting the intimacy and comfort of sex equally in that moment.

He was pulled once more from the trap that was his mind, by wet heat engulfing his cock. Tony gasped as the slow scrape of teeth brought his attention forcefully back to Loki, who was looking up at him with an almost disturbingly knowing gaze, given how he was occupying his mouth.

With Tony's attention rapidly narrowing down upon him, Loki brought him nearly to the brink of climax again, and again, and again. When what little remained of Tony's coherent thought had become certain that _this time_ Loki must finally let him find release, Loki not only backed off yet again, but he _stood_ from the couch entirely, causing Tony to release an involuntarily sob.

"Now, now, pet," Loki tutted, a mischievous look in his eyes, "I made you a promise, and I've yet to hear your worship."

Tony found enough of his sensibilities to give Loki a defiant look. "I worship no god."

"We shall see," was the amused retort, and Loki took a step back from the couch – giving Tony a good look at his cock as it stood erect and proud. "Now, I gave you a taste of my silver-tongue, I wish to sample yours. Come here, Tony Stark, and show me your talents."

"And if I don't want to?" Tony retorted, finding his defiance without the distraction of Loki between his legs. It wasn't that the idea of going down on Loki didn't appeal, while he hadn't done so in many years, it had been something he'd become quite proficient in during his days at MIT. No, this was defiance for defiance's sake. Tony Stark wasn't a man to yield to the inevitable without a fight. Occasionally he won, more often it seemed he lost, but this loss he might just greet with open arms, to help wash away the recent and more stinging one.

Loki quirked a brow, unreadable thoughts flickering across his face as he read the layers in Tony's expression and words. His features settled into something hard, but not cruel, as he stepped back to the couch and gripped Tony's hair, pulling him up to sitting. "Worship me."

"No."

"If you will not worship, then you will still show your respect." Loki stepped back with another yank, and Tony fell to kneeling on the carpeted floor. Loki's lips curled in a pleased smile. "That's better. Now, your mouth Stark, and use it not for words."

Tony looked up at him defiantly, but that only seemed to feed Loki's amusement. "Hmm, perhaps your hesitance is not truly due to defiance, but to a lack of faith in your own abilities? A being as old as I am, as many partners as I must have had... how could a young mortal such as yourself possibly measure up to that standard? It's not surprising you might be hesi-" Loki cut off with a soft moan of satisfaction.

If there was one thing that could cut straight through Tony's determination, it was his pride. He'd be damned if he would kneel there and listen to a figment of his own imagination disparage his skills. Even though he just might be out of practice, it was hardly a skill one forgot entirely, and he'd prove to his subconscious that he was just as good as he'd been.

Backing off just a bit, Tony worked the tip of his tongue under the foreskin, his lips brushing teasingly against the head, just teasing at what he knew Loki really wanted. The god took the hint as he lingered over the glans and gripping Tony's hair firmly once more, he pulled. Tony's mouth descended on him, slowly, wetly, and Loki eased up on the pressure again, waiting to see what the mortal would do. Tony pulled back and paused again with the tip of Loki's cock against his lower lip, tongue wriggling against the slit in a way that he hoped would make Loki's toes curl at the delicate and sharp stimulation.

Loki inhaled, exhaled almost shakily, and then tugged Tony forward again, going further this time, until he felt the glans hit the soft palate, making it clear what he wanted without any words. He looked down again as Tony drew back, and Tony had his eyes lifted to meet Loki's as he did.

The self-satisfaction was plain to see in Tony's eyes, and it echoed back in Loki's smirk as he pulled again, a bit harder this time. Tony complied, not stopping even when his forehead pressed against Loki's belly. He was aware that he was too out of practice to manage to smoothly swallow Loki all the way down, but that hardly meant he couldn't make it good. He wrapped his hand around the base, twisting and stroking in counterpoint now to the rhythm he set with his mouth. He knew the sight he was presenting Loki with. The god would be watching his cock disappear between Tony's lips, until the view was obscured by Tony's head and hand again.

Loki groaned in pleasure at the things Tony could do with his tongue, and was rewarded with a pleased hum that ran straight through him. "Perhaps I spoke too soon," Loki mused, thrusting his hips shallowly and giving his own satisfied hum as Tony took the hint to move a bit faster.

Feeling the pleasure tightening in his gut, Loki stilled Tony with the grip in his hair. "You do possess a talented mouth, and were I so inclined, I think I might quite enjoy finishing myself this way, but I have further plans for you yet," Loki told him, and pulled back a half step.

With a tug of Tony's hair, he had him on his feet, grip moving to the back of his neck once more, as Tony looked at him curiously. "How can I have you crying my name, if your mouth is otherwise occupied?" Loki murmured before claiming that same mouth with his own in a demanding kiss, this time giving Tony no illusion about who controlled it.

As they kissed, Tony found himself being backed across the floor, but he was too busy to give it more than a cursory thought until he felt cold, smooth glass pressed against his back. He broke the kiss to ask, "What are you doing?" And received a mischievous grin in return.

"I intend to take you right here, in view of your precious city, against the same panel I once threw you out of. What do you have to say to that, Tony Stark?"

Tony's breath caught, a frisson running down his spine, though it was a toss-up as to whether it was from fear or anticipation; most likely both. "Have an exhibitionist kink?" Tony quipped back as soon as he had his thoughts about him again. "A penchant for reliving past glories, as brief as they might be? A predilection for danger, and a subconscious desire to be caught?"

Loki's hand dipped between Tony's legs, finding no sign his interest had flagged. "Is that me, or yourself of which you speak?" His long fingers wrapped around Tony's cock, stroking slowly, fingers gliding back and forth in time with the melodic fall of his words. "You have called yourself the human embodiment of the phoenix metaphor, rising from the ashes to glory, but your predilection for 'bad ideas' as you call them is even stronger than my own. Perhaps it is the fire, more than the phoenix, with which you should be associated. Burning fast and bright and strong until you extinguish yourself in a blaze of perceived glory."

His head dipped, and his voice lowered into a husky drawl as lips brushed against Tony's ear. "Do not be so eager to burn yourself out. She will be waiting when your time comes, and she would not thank you for rushing to her side."

Tony's interest flagged at the reminder of why they were there, and his hands came up to push Loki away, but the god would not be moved. So instead he demanded angrily, "What would you know of what she'd have wanted?"

With a surprisingly gentle caress to the side of Tony's head, Loki murmured, "You said yourself that I'm a dream. Does that not mean I am actually in here, along with all of your memories of her? I can see them, know her as well as you do. You know my words are true, your grief simply clouds them from you. She'd forgive you for this dalliance being real before she'd forgive you for cutting your light short."

The words rang true, and the anger began to slip from between his fingers.

"Give in to the pleasure and let go of your guilt, Tony Stark," Loki murmured. "Your beloved will be safe with my mother in the peace of the afterlife.

"Hollow words when there is no afterlife."

"Mortals always presume to know so much more than they do," Loki mused.

"Just because your race lives to fuck-knows-when, doesn't mean you have all the answers," Tony growled, a different kind of anger growing now, one Loki recognized he could work with.

"I never said that. After all, I'm a figment of your imagination, am I not? The only truth I can know is the one you know yourself. And right in this moment the truth of what you want isn't to ponder the great existential questions of life, it's to feel the fire burning in you, reminding you that you are, for now, alive."

Tony didn't really want to know what it said about himself that this new anger rekindled his arousal. So instead, he wrapped a hand of his own around the back of Loki's neck, pulling him down that little bit so their lips touched as he bit out, "Now I _know_ you're my subconscious, you talk way too fucking much. You said you'd make me beg, so _make me_."

Loki smirked and murmured, "For this night only, your wish is my command," then he closed the gap between them and drew Tony into a punishing kiss.

Fingers raked down Tony's sides and he shivered at the pleasure/pain it induced. Between the way Loki's kiss demanded his willing submission, the scratches, and the perfect way Loki's hip rolled against him making the friction _just so_ , Tony thought he could probably come right like this. But that wasn't want he wanted, he wanted more, and as though Loki had read his mind once more he found himself spun around from one moment to the next, chest and cheek pressed to the glass as Loki lifted his arms above his head.

He gripped Tony's wrists in a single hand, pinning them there, stretching Tony up onto his toes as his lips began to ply the curve of his shoulders and the nape of his neck with maddening nips and nibbles. He groaned as he could feel the blood blossoming to the surface as Loki sucked and nipped a mark into being. The feeling of being branded and claimed shouldn't feel so good, but it always had.

Loki released his wrists, but Tony remained suspended. Craning his neck up, he could see a faint gold glow about his wrists as they were pinned still to the glass. "I need both hands to torment you properly," Loki explained on seeing the direction of Tony's gaze. He raked his fingers down Tony's sides once more to illustrate the point.

Then his explorations began to move downward. The sharp line of a shoulder-blade, the arch of his spine, the curve of a hip; all were fair game for Loki's attentions. When his hands slid over the curve of Tony's arse, he shivered with anticipation.

This wasn't the best angle for such things, but Loki knew he could make it work. He ran his thumbs down the crack of Tony's arse and pressed the cheeks apart, Tony made a sound like a whimper.

He leaned forward and trailed his tongue from the top of the cleft down, slowly, teasingly. He felt Tony tensing as he got close to his arsehole, but the position Loki had him strung up in meant he couldn't move away. Tony grew even tenser when he skipped over to flutter his tongue just below. He circled the hole with flicks of his tongue for a torturously long time, that was the point of this after all, and then finally spiralled in. When Loki's tongue pressed delicately into the center of his hole, Tony gave a moan and his legs would have gone out from under him if they'd been the only thing holding him up.

"Oh.. oh my..." Tony gasped out.

"That's more like it," Loki purred, his breath cool over Tony's damp skin causing a shiver up his spine. "Almost, but not quite what I need to hear."

He lapped at Tony's arsehole gently at first and increased the pace slowly. Tony seemed to be struggling not to squirm and the sounds he was making were less coherent by the minute. Loki tensed his tongue and pressed the tip into him as best he could, moving in and out with small movements to work him open slowly.

"Oh fuck, Loki," was the only thing he could understand in the string of words that came out of Tony's mouth as he slowly worked him open with his tongue. Tony was trying to use what little leverage he had to push back against him and Loki took enough mercy on him to aide him. He gripped one leg, bending it up so Tony could brace his knee against the window and the change in angle let Loki delve in deeper, wringing a delightedly wanton moan from Tony's lips.

The skin just inside him was slick and soft, and Loki pressed his lips around the hole and that helped him work his tongue even deeper. Noticing what was getting the best reaction, Loki focused on stroking his tongue in and curling the tip just a bit on the way out again. Tony was incoherent now, and he was proving to be pleasingly vocal when he liked something. But Loki had promised to make him beg, to see him come undone, and he would.

One of the blessings of magic – or perhaps it was just the fact that this was a dream – was that Loki didn't have to pause for the mundane things like finding a bottle of lube. Which meant from one moment to the next, Loki could go from gripping Tony's hip to pushing two slick fingers into his body. There was almost no resistance, not that he was surprised. Tony groaned again, pushing back to take more, and Loki nipped the curve of his arse, turning the groan into a gasp.

"You know what I want to hear," Loki murmured, adding another finger to the first two.

"Loki..."

"Say it Stark." A twist of his fingers emphasised the words.

"Please."

"Please what?" Another finger stretching him open, pressing deep so Tony could feel Loki's knuckles against his rim.

He drew a few more moans from the man as he kept up a slow, smooth rhythm designed to tease, to never be quite enough.

Another nip of teeth and Tony was gasping out, "Please, Loki... Take me, make me feel..."

"What do you need?"

Loki's fingers stilled and Tony whimpered. "You, I need you in me. _Please_..."

With all the grace of the mystical, or perhaps simply the surreal, Loki went from kneeling to standing pressed against Tony's back in a single smooth motion.

"Then you shall have me," he promised and pressed the head of his cock against Tony's arsehole, moving forward as slowly as he could manage.

The first few strokes were just as slow, teasing, causing Tony to whimper and writhe as he tried to find purchase against the glass. Finally Loki took mercy on him, releasing his hands. With his bent leg firmly in Loki's grasp, and his own hands now free to brace against the window in front of him, Tony finally had the leverage to arch back into each of Loki's strokes. This was what he'd needed. To be split opened and claimed, but there was still something...

"Harder," he demanded, wanting, _needing_ to trade the slow ease for something more primal, more... punishing.

Loki conceded, keeping the same slow pace, but putting more force into each thrust. " _Faster_ ," Tony demanded, and again Loki complied.

The sound of skin on skin filled his ears, his own breaths echoing back at him from the glass. Tony closed his eyes and he gave himself over to the visceral sounds and sensations, letting them fill him, consume him, until all that was left was here, now, a pleasure so raw it was nearly pain.

Teeth bit down at the base of his neck, and with a startled cry Tony was coming. Loki kept going through the waves of Tony's climax and then his own, leaving Tony whimpering softly with the over-stimulation as he finally stilled.

They remained there, Tony pressed up against the glass for a few moments, and when Loki moved it was with surprising gentleness. There was a tingle across his skin of some sort of magic as Loki pulled out and lifted Tony in his arms. He carried him back over towards the couch, but instead of going for the furniture, Loki lay them both out on the faux fir rug before it.

A flick of his wrist, a shimmer of light, and Loki was pulling an rich emerald blanket over them both. With the blanket in place, Loki settled in as the big spoon to Tony's little, an arm over the mortal's waist, holding him securely back to chest.

They were quiet for quite a while, when Tony's curiosity couldn't be contained any longer and he broke the stillness. He didn't know how much longer this dream might last, it had already gone on so long, and he had to understand what story his mind had given Loki to make him such a perfect companion on this long and otherwise lonely night.

"You spoke a lot about grief tonight," Tony said quietly, and he could feel Loki grow tense against his back, "and it didn't sound like it was fresh..."

The silence that followed stretched on long enough Tony began to think Loki wasn't going to answer at all. Then he felt a huff of breath against his nape and Loki spoke quietly, "You wonder how I understand your pain so well."

"Well... yeah."

There was another silence, but this one was more pensive and somehow Tony knew Loki was using it to gather his thoughts rather than avoiding an answer. "I told you I have lived many of your lifetimes... There was a time where that was more literal than the rest.

"Some of your centuries ago, I tired of feeling like an outcast amongst my own people and I fled Asgard for the anonymity of living amongst your kind. I intended it to simply be an escape for a time, but there was a man... Heikki." Loki spoke the name with a sad fondness that Tony had never heard in his voice before. There was a tenderness that before this night he'd have never even thought Loki of being capable of. "I was in a guise not dissimilar from the brunette female I presented you with earlier, and he was fascinated with me. He was determined to court me, despite the fact that I was posing as an orphaned traveller with no dowry to my name. Heikki, even without knowing the truth of my origins, it felt as though he _knew_ me, and he made me feel...valued."

Loki gave a quiet sigh. "Your mortal lives, they move so quickly, and I got caught up in my romance with Heikki. Almost before I knew it, we were wed and I was with child."

"You can get pregnant?" Tony asked in shock, never having considered Loki anything but male, despite the appearances he first wore, and forgetting for a moment that this was a dream, where surely anything was possible.

"Only when in a female form for an extended time it seems."

There was a pause before Loki continued, and this time there was anger mixed with the sadness. "We had two young sons by the time the man that called himself my father found me. To say Odin was irate at how I had spent the decade away was putting it mildly. It's not the done thing in Asgardian society for a man to openly submit himself to another man, regardless of what you might do behind closed doors. To have lived as a _woman_ for all that time, even more abhorrent, most assuredly being the one that was doing all of the submitting by the simple-minded Asgardian view of things..."

Loki gave a derisive and bitter chuckle. "No prince of the realm could be found out to have behaved in such a manner. I wonder now what would have been the bigger scandal, that or my Jotun heritage? Perhaps Odin worried that the revelation of one would lead to the other and his people would overthrow him for keeping such an abomination in the shadow of the throne."

Tony rested a hand over Loki's arm where it lay across his waist, giving it a gentle squeeze. It seemed to pull Loki back from his musing. "Odin wished to simply wipe them out, you Midgardians died even easier in those days than you do now, and arranged properly there would be not a single question raised about their deaths. I'm not sure now whether his response to my pleas was more mercy for them or punishment for me..."

When the pause stretched on long enough it seemed like Loki might not continue the story, Tony asked in a hushed tone, "What did he do?"

"...He spared their lives, but not their memory of me. I was replaced in the memories of them and all our kinsfolk by the memory of an anonymous woman who had died at the birth of her second son. I tried to go back later, when I'd slipped from Odin's grasp again, but none recognized me, and the pain of having your child look at you and see you as a stranger... There are few enemies I would wish that upon.

"I spent the rest of their lives watching at a distance, hoping perhaps that when they passed I might see them again and have them know me. When Heikki died I plead with Mistress Death to let me see him... she sent her avatar to deny my request. Not, she said, because I didn't deserve to have it granted, but because it would serve no purpose. Heikki did not know me when he died, and he would not know me in death either...

"That was the moment I realised he and my children were truly lost to me. I stopped watching them, knowing that I was only keeping the wound open longer by doing so, and threw myself into proving I was a true son of Odin, avowing I had learned my lesson," Loki scoffed. "I still hadn't managed to prove such a thing centuries later, when I fell."

"No wonder you've got daddy issues," Tony muttered, surprising a barking laugh from the god.

"Indeed..." There was quiet for a time, before Loki continued. "So you see now, I understand loss, and even envy you yours, because it is not forever, it is only for a while."

"...I never believed in god or an afterlife..."

"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed from one state to another."

"...Are you seriously quoting the Law of Conservation of Energy at me to support an afterlife?"

"It's a crude, but at its base accurate, description of the universe. Gods, spirits, ascension, transformation, energy, magic; it's all part of a much larger tapestry that makes up the universe than most minds can comprehend. Religion, philosophy, science, mathematics; these are all things we use to understand it. Regardless of what else you may believe, Tony Stark, rest easy in the comfort that when your time comes, your energy will still live on in the universe, alongside that of your lady love."

"You are all stardust," Tony murmured.

"Ah yes, another quote, from one of your more notable atheists. Even in his profession of non-belief, he believes in the interconnectivity of the universe on the atomic level. You see, the interconnectivity cannot be denied."

There was silence for a while, before Tony murmured, "Dreaming of being consoled by a rouge dead alien, who quotes physics at me and is familiar with Carl Sagan as a way of assuring me there is an afterlife of some sort, where I'll be reunited with Pepper... after we just had sex against my penthouse window. How is this my life? I knew I was a bit crazy, but this takes the cake."

He could feel Loki's lips curl into a smile against the nape of his neck, and a small laugh huffed out. "Sleep Stark, you have had enough weight on your mind for one night. Sleep and feel rested so you may say your good-byes tomorrow."

"...Not good-bye, just... until later," Tony murmured, eyes already beginning to drift closed, the weight of suggestion beneath Loki's words adding to the physical exhaustion that had already gripped the mortal's body.

"Indeed," Loki agreed, and pressed a tender kiss to the curve of Tony's neck, and held him as sleep took him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tony groaned as he felt the morning sun shining upon his face.

"Sir," Jarvis' voice cut through the sleepy haze, sounding a bit gentler than usual. "Dr. Banner has indicated his intention to collect you in 90 minutes. I thought it best to wake you so you might have time to shower."

Slowly Tony opened his eyes, marvelling a bit at the lack of pain in his head. The sensible part of his brain, as small as that might be, had been expecting a hangover of marching band proportions. However his expectations were defied; there wasn't even a twinge. In fact... he felt surprisingly well rested. Taking a mental inventory, Tony was pretty sure he'd had his best night's sleep in weeks, maybe even months.

That's when where he lay registered. He was sprawled out on the faux fur rug, a pillow from the couch beneath his head and a fuzzy throw blanket wrapped around him. A _green_ throw blanket, like the one Loki had produced in his dream.

Tony sat up, looking around. Nothing looked out of place until he looked at the windows, and there, on the one Loki had pressed him up against, were streaks on the glass. But it had all been a dream, hadn't it?

"Jarvis... Did I have any visitors last night?"

There was an unusually long pause from the AI before he replied, "I cannot say with certainty, sir. There appear to be some troubling anomalies with last night's sensor readings. I will need to analyse the data further. I have no record of another entering or leaving these rooms, but there is significant electrical interference within them. I am uncertain as to why I was not aware of this last night."

Tony sat there, his still exterior belying his churning mind. He'd seen a lot of crazy stuff since becoming Iron Man, but this... He was supposed to believe he'd been visited by a dead alien demi-god, who'd given him _sympathy sex_?

His mind provided him with four viable possibilities. One, he was still dreaming, but he certainly felt awake and a quick pinch of his arm seemed to confirm the idea. Two, someone posed as Loki, posing as Pepper, to get to him for some reason. That seemed needlessly convoluted, and nothing seemed out of place, so what would have been the gain? Three, Loki was dead and was haunting him in a very surreal manner. He did claim to know an awful lot about the supposed afterlife. Or four, Loki was somehow actually alive, and actually had come to his home to pose as Pepper, not realising she was gone. And for some reason he, despite being a self-absorbed egomaniac villain, had chosen to spend his evening consoling his quarry instead.

How was this a world where four seemed like the most likely option?

Tony got up, wrapping the blanket around him as he went over to examine the marks on the window. There were no aches, no pains from sleeping all night on the floor. At his age, with what he'd put his body through, he should have felt something surely, but no. He turned his attention to the streaks; he supposed he could have made them on his own in some sort of strange sleep-walk, but the idea seemed unlikely.

Distantly, some part of him said he shouldn't be calm about this. About the idea that he had been vulnerable with a bona fide super villain at a moment of great weakness. He thought back over the night before though, and all he felt was the peace he'd found laying under this same blanket, with Loki wrapped around him.

Tony considered the events as they'd begun; they were clear in his mind despite how deep he'd been in the bottle. Loki had asked him a few questions about the missing arc reactor, maybe he'd been there for that for some reason? Other than that, he couldn't discern what reason Loki would have for visiting him like this.

Logically he knew he should raise the alert, warn the others that their first nemesis as a team wasn't apparently as dead as he'd led his brother to believe. This wasn't the day for that though. This was a day to honour Pepper, and Loki... Loki had given him a precious gift. The peace to get through this day with the respect Pepper deserved.

Tony turned away from the window. "Do whatever diagnostics you need to," he told his AI, "I'll look at them later, or tomorrow. For now, turn on the shower would you, so it's hot when I get in?"

"Certainly, sir."

Loki could have a one day head start on whatever it was he was up to, Tony figured he owed him that much. Tomorrow he'd worry about whatever the chaotic demi-god's plans were, but for now Tony needed a shower, and then it would be time to go. Not to say _good-bye_ , but instead Tony murmured to himself as he headed for his room, "I'll see you in the stardust."

~*~


End file.
